


Success

by FollowTheFirefly



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Gen, Title is temporary until I can find a better one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7031845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollowTheFirefly/pseuds/FollowTheFirefly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cecile manages to cook a successful pasta dish, much to Lloyd and Suzaku's surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this one while I was shopping for ingredients for a recipe I was trying last week. The one Cecile is making is a popular dish with my family that I can make from memory, but it's simple enough for anyone to try.

It was rare for them to have a single day off, let alone two consecutive days in a row. But since they’d made such tremendous progress with the Lancelot’s FLOAT system, Lloyd felt that they were deserving of a few days off of work.

In all honesty, it was probably because there was a Blindspot marathon scheduled on TV, but no one was going to say anything about it.

Even though he had the day to do whatever he pleased, Suzaku still found himself waking up early. Not as early as he usually would if he had to go to the lab, but any other person would be questioning why he was willingly getting out of bed before nine when he could sleep in until noon if he chose to. 

After a quick shower, Suzaku found himself traipsing down to the kitchen for some breakfast. He wasn’t surprised to see Lloyd seated at the table, eating from a bag of gummy worms and reading one of his usual science magazines. Nearby on the counter, a coffee pot dripped some coffee into a chipped purple mug with faded lettering and it looked dangerously close to overflowing.

Clearly Lloyd had forgotten about it. Just like he did nearly every other morning.

“Coffee’s done, Lloyd,” Suzaku turned it off and set the mug gingerly down on the counter next to the toaster. 

“Yes, thank you,” Lloyd said, waving his hand lazily in the air, still engrossed in whatever article he was reading.

“Not watching Blindspot yet?” Lloyd had tried to introduce Suzaku and Cécile to the show when it first aired on TV, but they just couldn’t get interested in it the way Lloyd did.

“Oh, that doesn’t come on until tonight for some reason,” Lloyd bit the head off of a bright green gummy worm.

“Who starts a marathon at night?” Suzaku questioned as he gathered the ingredients needed to make an omelet. “That doesn’t make much sense.” He pulled a frying pan and large mixing bowl out from under the sink, turned to Lloyd and said, “Are you actually going to eat breakfast or were you going to eat gummy worms all morning?”

“I’ll get breakfast eventually,” Lloyd flipped the page of the magazine.

“If you say so,” Suzaku cracked some eggs into the mixing bowl, tossing the shells into the trash can.

“By the way, Suzaku, have you seen Cécile yet this morning?” Lloyd finally looked up at Suzaku across the kitchen. “She was going to take a shower once she got up, but I wonder if she’s even done that yet.”

“No, I heard the shower running from her room when I came down this morning,” Suzaku chopped up some onions and peppers and added them to the mixing bowl with the eggs. “Why?”

“She said that she wanted to do some grocery shopping this morning,” Lloyd said in a bored voice. “If she slept past nine, I was meant to go wake her up.”

“Well, she’s awake,” Suzaku said. “Did she want us to help?” 

“From the way it sounded, yes,” Lloyd didn’t sound pleased about this. He got up from the table and walked over to the counter and picked up his mug of still-steaming coffee. “I just hope she doesn’t try to make a day of it like the last time.”

“I think she said that she had plans with some friends tonight,” Suzaku finished mixing the ingredients together and poured the concoction into the frying pan on the stove.

“Oh, well that’s good to hear,” Lloyd sipped on his coffee, though Suzaku had to wonder how he didn’t burn himself with how hot it was. “Its nice to see that she has a social life outside of work.”

“Like you don’t?” Suzaku was watching the eggs cook on the stovetop.

“You know I don’t like people,” Lloyd reminded him.

“You tell us all at least twice a week,” Suzaku mentioned.

“Because you seem to forget that,” Lloyd sighed, turning around and reaching for some sugary cereal on top of the fridge.

“I don’t think anyone could,” Suzaku poked his omelet with a spatula. 

“Did you want any cereal or should I put it away?” Lloyd pulled down some bowls from the other cabinet.

“This’ll be good, thanks,” Suzaku gestured towards the eggs in the pan.

The kitchen door swung open and Cécile walked into the room, carrying what appeared to be a pile of cookbooks in her arms. Lloyd and Suzaku glanced nervously at each other, knowing full well what was going to happen. This was likely the reason why Cécile had wanted to go to the grocery store.

“Good morning,” Cécile was always a morning person, which contrasted greatly with Lloyd being such a night owl.

“Morning,” Suzaku kept poking his omelet.

“Cécile, are those cookbooks?” Lloyd already knew the answer to his question, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

“Yes, I found a recipe for some chicken that I wanted to try, but I can’t remember where I left it,” Cécile set the books on the table next to Lloyd’s gummy worms.

“Was it in a book?” Suzaku tried to flip the eggs in the frying pan. “Or did you cut it out and put it somewhere?”

“That’s what I can’t remember,” Cécile sighed. She flipped through the pages of a rather beaten cookbook, growing more and more frustrated with each page. “Really, where did I leave it?” 

“Nowhere near here, we can hope,” Lloyd was watching Suzaku struggle with his omelet, though it looked much more like scrambled eggs by this point. 

Cécile shot him a glare.

“Yes yes, I know,” Lloyd sighed. “I crossed some sort of social line, didn’t I?”

“Maybe he’s catching on faster than we thought, Miss Cécile,” Suzaku had given up any attempt of having the eggs even slightly resemble an omelet and settled for scrambled eggs instead.

She nodded, still looking through the pages of one of the books when she stopped, her eyes scanning one of the pages slowly.

“Did you find it?” Lloyd sipped on his coffee as he leaned an elbow on the counter behind him.

“No, but this pasta salad looks rather good, doesn’t it?” Cécile held up the book for Lloyd to see.

“Which one?” Lloyd squinted at the book from across the kitchen.

“The pasta, Lloyd,” Cécile said rather impatiently. “The other one is for cod.”

“Please don’t try fish again,” Suzaku said in a pleading voice.

“The last one wasn’t bad!” Cécile protested as Lloyd moved closer, abandoning his cereal and coffee at the counter, and took the book in his hand.

“You know, it doesn’t look that bad,” Lloyd scanned the list of ingredients. “But do you think that you can pull it off?” 

“It’s a simple pasta dish,” Cécile retorted. “How hard can it possibly be?”

“You’ve yet to serve toast that hasn’t been burnt to a crisp,” Suzaku pointed out.

“And you seemed to have difficulty with the last one,” Lloyd brought over his coffee and cereal to the table and sat down across from Cécile. 

“That one had chicken in it,” Cécile clarified before rounding on Suzaku and saying, “And toast is nowhere near the same as pasta.”

“That’s his point, I believe,” Lloyd said as Suzaku opened his mouth to speak.

“And besides, the chicken wasn’t even that bad,” Cécile tried to shrug it off.

“I disagree,” Lloyd pulled face.

“Was that the time when we all got so sick that Lloyd had to take a sick day?” Suzaku scooped his eggs into a bowl and grabbed a fork from the nearby drawer.

“My first in nearly ten years, I’m afraid,” Lloyd sounded quite disappointed.

“Well, this one doesn’t have any meat of any kind,” Cécile seemed a bit cross with the two of them. She pulled a notepad from the table towards her and started copying down the list of ingredients. 

“Oh, that should be fine, then,” Lloyd said through a spoonful of cereal.

“Here, let me look at it,” Suzaku walked over to the table, setting his bowl of eggs down and taking the book from Lloyd and skimming over the recipe in question. “Seems easy enough.”

“Doesn’t it?” Cécile was very excited about this. 

“Just try to stick with the recipe this time,” Lloyd said before taking another sip of coffee. 

“So I’m guessing that we’ll all be going shopping today?” Suzaku asked, adding some salt and pepper from the table shakers to his eggs. 

“If you could just watch after Lloyd, that would be great,” Cécile nodded.

“I don’t need minding, you know,” Lloyd protested, pulling his magazine out from underneath a Chinese cookbook.

“We need to make sure that you don’t buy all of the pudding in the store,” Cécile said a little too bluntly.

“When have I ever tried to do that?” Lloyd wanted to know.

“Never, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past you to try it,” Suzaku stabbed his eggs with a fork.

Lloyd said nothing, but still scowled in protest as he finished off the rest of his cereal. 

“Suzaku, you didn’t have any plans for today, did you?” Cécile turned to Suzaku.

“Nothing until tomorrow,” Suzaku set the cookbook on top of the large pile on the kitchen table. “Milly’s planned some sort of festival and she wants everyone’s help in planning it, so we’re having a meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

“She does love to plan things,” Lloyd flipped through his magazine before turning to Cécile and asking, “Were you going to eat any breakfast?”

“No, I was going to get ready to go soon,” Cécile folded the list of ingredients and slid it into her pocket. “So hurry up and get ready.”

She gathered up the remaining cookbooks on the table and carried them out of the kitchen, leaving Lloyd and Suzaku behind at the table.

“I guess we’d better get going,” Lloyd sighed, finishing the last of his coffee. “There’s no point in dilly-dallying, is there?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this written a while ago, but I finally got the chance to finish typing it today. Which is good because I noticed quite a few typos that I had to fix.

Cécile really did feel bad for leaving Suzaku with Lloyd for the duration of the shopping trip. She had given him a copy of Lloyd’s favourite fantasy novel in hopes that the scientist would find a place to sit down and read, but it seemed that he had taken to wandering the aisles at random as he usually did. It was only a matter of time until he started reading the nutrition information on all of the products in sight, which was a sign to Cécile that they needed to go. This time, it seemed that Lloyd was a bit more patient than he usually was, though both Cécile and Suzaku had to wonder how long it would last.

“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” Cécile told Suzazku as the latter followed Lloyd in the direction of the coffees and teas. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

“Call me if you have any problems,” Suzaku said before dashing down the aisle to catch up with his boss. He found him standing in front of a rather large display of loose leaf teas, examining one box in particular quite carefully. “Um, what are you doing?”

“I’ve run out of my usual tea, but I thought I’d try something new,” Lloyd frowned, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared at the plethora of teas before him. “But which should I try?”

“Couldn’t you get a few?” Suzaku suggested, feeling like he was stating the obvious. “We do go through an awful lot of tea.”

“We do, but we don’t want to buy all of the tea in the store,” Lloyd picked up a tin of lemon peppermint tea and looked over the list of ingredients. “This one sounds pleasant enough.”

“We’ll need a basket, won’t we?” Suzaku knew he shouldn’t have asked and automatically made his way back to the front of the store for a shopping basket.

It took him a good bit of time to find one. The basket rack at the front of the store was empty, so Suzaku was left to wander the store searching for any unused basket that he could find. For reasons unexplained, he found a rack of baskets in the back near the department that sold various meats and exotic cheeses. He was still pondering their strange placement when he finally reached Lloyd a few minutes later.

It seemed like Lloyd’s collection had grown immensely in the short time that Suzaku had been gone. He’d apparently seen it fit to place them in a circle on the ground, easily taking up most of the width of the aisle. He thought that it looked like the beginning of a strange summoning circle, though he couldn’t imagine what Lloyd would summon short of the world’s largest pudding cup. Still, he took care not to break the circle as he reached the scientist sitting in the middle, still deciding on flavours of tea.

“Think we have enough?” Suzaku stared at the circle of teas on the floor.

“You can never have enough tea,” Lloyd said with the air of a philosopher. “But now that I think on it, we really don’t have the cupboard space for all of these.”

“Nor the budget,” Suzaku sighed. “And we really don’t have the space unless you move some to your pudding shelf.”

“I suppose I could manage that,” Lloyd mused, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“But were you really getting all of these?” Suzaku gestured to the large tea circle on the floor.

“Most of it, yes,” Lloyd started to shift through the boxes of tea.

“Lloyd, I know you don’t drink all of this tea,” Suzaku said as he held up a box of cinnamon spice tea. “I mean, you can’t stand cinnamon.”

“That’s for Cécile-kun,” Lloyd said, holding up a can of ginger tea. “She likes that, this one here, and that strawberry pomegranate tea I got her for her birthday last year.”

“So what are we putting back?” Suzaku knelt down next to Lloyd and tried to determine the logic to his boss’ organization.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Lloyd said a little too enthusiastically. 

“You know, it’s a really good thing that we’re alone in this aisle,” Suzaku placed a tin of chai tea back on the shelf above Lloyd’s shoulder. “We probably look really suspicious right now.”

“How can we possibly look suspicious?” Suzaku had worked with Lloyd long enough to know that he wasn’t being sarcastic.

“It looks like you’re making a summoning circle out of tea,” Suzaku gestured to the tea circle around them.

“No, a summoning circle is much more intricate,” Lloyd retorted. “But I could make one if you like.”

“No, I’m fine,” Suzaku said quickly. “I just wish Miss Cécile would hurry up.”

“In a rush to go somewhere?” Lloyd asked, still sifting through the boxes of tea.

“Yes, back to the base,” Suzaku said, perhaps a bit too bluntly.

“You’ve never been one for shopping,” Lloyd noted.

“No, I suppose not,” Suzaku reached up to put a tin of Lady Grey back on the shelf.

“Well, I think I’m finished with my pile,” Lloyd sounded quite pleased with himself.

“So I’m putting all of these back,” Suzaku was relieved to find that the pile to put back was much larger than the pile of tea to keep.

“I’ll put them in the basket while you finish,” Lloyd reached over and grabbed the basket by Suzaku’s knees and started putting the teas inside.

“Not having any problems, are we?”

Suzaku turned around and saw Cécile standing behind him, a basket of groceries in her hand. She looked at the sight like a parent who had long since grown accustomed to the antics of their hyperactive child and, as such, really didn’t seem phased by the large pile of tea on the floor.

“Lloyd, why didn’t you tell me that she was back?” Suzaku glared at Lloyd.

“I thought you’d heard her footsteps,” Lloyd said innocently enough before turning to Cécile. “No phone call?”

“I realized that I left my phone in the car,” Cécile said apologetically. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Thank goodness,” Suzaku was more than ready to leave.

“Before you say anything, Cécile-kun, I did remember to get your tea,” Lloyd stood up with the basket of tea in his hand. 

“Thank you,” Cécile said before she turned to Suzaku and helped him to his feet. “Anything I should know about? There weren’t any issues, were there?”

“No more than usual,” Suzaku shook his head. “You finished really quickly. Did you get everything you need?”

“Well, it took me a few minutes to find the onions, but I found them,” Cécile checked her list one more time to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. 

“So I take it that this will be our dinner for tonight?” Lloyd assumed.

“Part of it,” Cécile nodded. “It seems that this is more of a lunch pasta, but I think it can work for dinner, too.”

“Well, let’s get going,” Lloyd grabbed Suzaku and Cécile by the arm and pulling them both down the aisle. “Who knows how long this will take and I’d like to eat sometime before midnight.”

-

“Miss Cécile, are you sure you don’t need any help?”

Cécile glanced up from the counter where she was chopping up some peppers and looked at Suzaku, who was playing some sort of RPG on the communal PlayStation. Lloyd sat nearby reading an anthology on Greek mythology while drinking his tea that he’d bought earlier that afternoon.

“I’m okay, Suzaku,” Cécile shook her head. “I’ve got everything under control.”

“Do you?” Lloyd glanced at her over his glasses, the doubt obvious in his voice. 

“Yes, Lloyd, I do,” Cécile scowled at him. “I just have the pasta cooking and there are a few last minute things to add to it and then I’m finished.”

Lloyd turned to Suzaku and said, “Doesn’t seem possible, does it?”

“Don’t make me lecture you on rudeness,” Cécile picked up a stray cherry tomato and lobbed it at Lloyd, hitting him in the back of the head.

“You say as you throw a tomato at me,” Lloyd picked up up the tomato in question and bit into it.

The timer on the stove went off, signaling that the pasta was finished cooking. 

“I think the colander is back under the sink,” Suzaku stood and started walking back to the kitchen to check on Cécile. 

“Yes, I remember it being under there,” Cécile knelt down under the sink and pulled out the bright pink colander. “Not sure why its here, anyway. Or why it’s pink. Whoever heard of a pink colander?”

“I was straining lettuce for a salad the other day,” Lloyd said from the lounge, his attention mostly focused on his book. “Isn’t that where it always goes?”

“No, it goes with the pots and pans,” Suzaku corrected Lloyd.

“At least he thought to put it away this time,” Cécile pointed out, bringing the pot of pasta over from the stove and dumping it into the colander sitting in the sink.

“But why is it pink?” Suzaku asked. “I thought we had a white one?”

“Oh, I accidentally broke the last one and replaced it,” Lloyd explained. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice the difference.”

“I think you’d have to be blind not to,” Cécile said. “What were you doing that broke the colander?” 

“Are you sure you really want to know the answer to that question?” Suzaku arched an eyebrow at Cécile as he pulled one of the barstools over to the counter. 

“On second thought, don’t answer that,” Cécile said quickly. “I’m sure it was something we really don’t want to know about.”

“If you say so,” Lloyd shrugged. “You do know that I can still hear you, right?”

“Yes, we know,” Suzaku said as he watched Cécile work with the pasta in the colander. “Milly told me that running cold water on it straight away keeps it from sticking together later.”

“Was she trying to teach Shirley again?” Cécile moved the colander back over to the sink and ran some cold water over the noodles.

“She tries to at least twice a week now,” Suzaku nodded.

“Let’s see if this works,” Cécile shut the faucet off and shook out the rest of the water from the colander. 

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Suzaku asked a bit nervously, watching Cécile flit around the kitchen, pouring the noodles into a large mixing bowl.

“I’m almost done,” Cécile opened a bottle of salad dressing and dumped the entire thing in the bowl with the pasta.

Feeling that she might be overdoing it a bit, Suzaku edged over to the recipe and checked to make sure that she wasn’t making a colossal mistake. Sure enough, he found that she was indeed meant to pour the entire bottle on it. Narrowing his eyebrows in surprise, Suzaku pushed the recipe away and focused back on Cécile, who was opening a bottle of seasoning.

“Lloyd, can you set the table?” she called to Lloyd, who was still reading in the lounge.

“Is it ready?” Lloyd sounded surprised. 

“Almost,” Cécile poured the bowl of chopped veggies into the larger mixing bowl.

“This should be interesting,” Lloyd closed his book and brought his mug of tea with him to the kitchen, setting it on the table.

“I think it smells good,” Cécile said, using some tongs to mix up the veggies with the pasta and seasonings.

Wordlessly, Suzaku motioned for Lloyd to look at the recipe on the counter. Wondering what he could mean, Lloyd moved over to where Suzaku was sitting and looked at the recipe Cécile had been looking at for the last twenty minutes. Suzaku pointed to the part where it said to put an entire bottle of salad dressing on the noodles. Lloyd squinted at the paper, wanting to make sure that he was reading it properly. He glanced up at Suzaku who nodded to confirm that yes, he was reading everything correctly.

“So who’s ready?” Cécile asked.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try it,” Lloyd shrugged, moving across the kitchen to bring some bowls down from the cupboard while Suzaku moved to get placemats and forks.

“Isn’t it meant to be cold when you serve it, Miss Cécile?” Suzaku asked.

“The recipe says either room temperature or cold,” Cécile took the bowls from Lloyd. 

“I imagine cold would probably taste a bit better,” Lloyd assumed as he and Suzaku sat down with Cécile at the table.

“Well, I didn’t think anyone would want to wait a few hours to eat,” Cécile started dishing the pasta salad into bowls.

“Especially since its almost eight now,” Suzaku set the cutlery down in front of each placemat. “I think my peanut butter sandwich wore off hours ago.”

“If that ‘s all you ate for lunch, I’m sure it did,” Lloyd took the bowl of pasta Cécile offered him.

“Suzaku, was that all you had?” Cécile placed a bowl of pasta in front of him.

“You told me to save room for dinner, so I did,” Suzaku explained, using his fork to poke at a cherry tomato. “I just thought we’d be eating a bit earlier.”

“It’s all finished now,” Cécile served herself some pasta and sat down as she looked at Lloyd and Suzaku, noticing that they weren’t eating. “I haven’t poisoned it, you know.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious,” Lloyd was using his fork to twirl the noodles like spaghetti. 

“There’s no meat or dairy, so you’ll be fine,” Cécile scooped up a forkful of pasta and ate it. She chewed it for a few seconds before saying, “Hey, it’s actually really good!”

Suzaku and Lloyd glanced at each other, wondering if she was merely pretending before they each scooped up some pasta onto their forks and ate it. Lloyd took a little while in deciding, but Suzaku made up his mind pretty quickly.

“Yeah, I like it,” Suzaku twisted some more of the pasta onto his fork.

“Do my taste buds deceive me?” Lloyd was clearly conflicted and more than a little confused. “Did Cécile-kun really make something not only edible, but that tastes good as well?”

“It’s not that unheard of,” Cécile reprimanded him.

“No, but it’s not that common,” Suzaku said through a mouthful of pasta.

“It’s a wonder that this worked out okay,” Lloyd nodded. 

“And what do you mean by that?” Cécile demanded. 

“That the last time you made something like this, we all got quick ill from it,” Lloyd said bluntly.

“Yes, but it actually tastes good this time,” Cécile said happily. “Maybe I’ll try that tuna salad tomorrow night.”

Lloyd looked a bit worried while Suzaku said, “Don’t you think this’ll last for a few days?”

“Yes, but it’s always a good idea to have a backup plan,” Cécile said before eating some more pasta. “I have a feeling that this won’t last too terribly long.”

“It doesn’t look like it makes a lot of food, no,” Lloyd shook his head.

“But we should have plenty of tuna, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” Cécile went on. “I don’t think I need anything from the store for it, too.”

“At least that’s a bonus,” Suzaku tried to look on the positive side of things.

“But don’t go thinking that you’re the next top chef because you made one good dish,” Lloyd munched on a stray pepper from his bowl.

“Of course not,” Cécile shook her head. “But now I’m ready to try something else. This is a lot more fun than I thought.”

Suzaku sighed while Lloyd rolled his eyes and tried to pretend that he wasn’t a bit alarmed by the whole ordeal. If Cécile really enjoyed cooking that much, then this was something they’d have to get used to.


End file.
